Page 54 of The Duke’s Hidden Duchess

“Together.”

“Together.”

Sowerby had already established the connection between the two men. This was different. Giles had followed Rowland into Wexford’s own neighbourhood and met him within a mile of the estate.

“What happened?”

“They quarrelled.”

Selina looked up.

“Did the landlord hear them?”

“Not enough to give us the substance. He was passing the passage several times and heard raised voices towards the end. Rowland said something about money. Giles answered that he had been promised results. The landlord heard my title once, and later the words ‘your assurances.’ He could not swear which man said them.”

“That is all?”

“Nearly. Giles came out first and reached his carriage without his hat. He had to send the inn boy back for it.”

Something shifted in Selina’s expression.

“Giles does not forget his hat.”

“So I gathered.”

“No. You do not understand. Giles may forget a promise, a debt or a relative without the least inconvenience. He does not forget his hat.”

Nathaniel almost smiled.

“Then he was angry.”

“At the very least, badly unsettled.”

She returned her attention to his hand.

Nathaniel watched her wash the last trace of blood from his skin.

“What do you make of it?”

“That we know more than we did yesterday.” She reached for the needle she had brought from her workbox. “Sowerby told us they were acting together. Now we know the arrangement is under strain.”

“Enough to use?”

“Perhaps.”

“Only perhaps?”

Selina glanced at him. “You have known me long enough to know that I will not manufacture certainty merely because you find it convenient.”

“I had hoped marriage might improve the service.”

“It has made me considerably more expensive.”

That drew the laugh from him.

She bent again over his hand. “Whatever they quarrelled about, I would rather not decide its meaning before we know it. Rowland may want money from Giles. Giles may want something from Rowland. One of them may simply dislike the other’s coat. We know only that they met and parted badly.”

“And that Rowland has deliberately attached Giles’s name to his presence here.”